Two days after this interview we were moved from Mosul, where our presence was becoming irksome no doubt. Before leaving I left all my fortunate money, except five pounds, with the Consul, asking him to form a fund (which I hoped would be supplemented later by the Red Cross) for sick prisoners. Twelve months later this money was returned to me in full, but I fancy that it had done its work in the meanwhile. On the day before our journey I went shopping with the Imperial _kavass_ aforesaid, and it was a most pompous and pleasant excursion. Although I wore sandshoes and tattered garments, what with my eyeglass, and the gorgeous German individual, dressed like a Bond Street _commissionaire_, who carried my parcels and did my bargaining, I think we made a great impression upon the good burgesses of Mosul. We threaded our way among Kurds with seven pistols at their belts, and Arabs hung with bandoliers, and astonishing Circassians with whiskers and swords. Almost every male swaggered about heavily armed, but a blow on their bristling midriff would have staggered any one of them. Their bark, I should think, is worse than their bite. After a Turkish bath, where I graciously entertained the company with coffee, we strolled round the transport square, where we chaffered hotly for carriages to take us to Aleppo. The material results of the morning were: Some food and tobacco for the men staying behind. Rations for ourselves, consisting of an amorphous mass of dates, cigarettes, conical loaves of sugar, candles, and a heap of unleavened bread. Carriages for our conveyance to Aleppo. But the moral effect of our excursion was greater far. I sowed broadcast the seeds of disaffection to Abdul Ghani Bey. To the tobacconist I said that the English, Germans, Turks, and all the nations of the earth, while differing in other matters, had agreed he was a worm to be crushed under the heel of civilisation. To the grocer I repeated the story. To the fruiterer I said his doom was nigh, and to the baker and candlestick maker that his hour had come. Everyone agreed. _Conspuez le commandant_ was the general opinion. "In good old Abdul Hamid's days," they said, "such devil's spawn would not have been allowed to live." It was a matter of minutes before rumours of his downfall were rife throughout the city. Next day he came to see us off, bow-legs, whip, and scowl and all. He stood stockily, watching us drive away, and then turned and spat. But the taste of us was not to be thus easily dispelled. He will remember us, I hope, to his dying day. May that day be soon! CHAPTER IV "OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION. . . ."